


The Present is Theirs; The Future is Mine

by Geonn



Category: Sanctuary (TV), Warehouse 13
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe, Episode: s04e01 Tempus, F/F, F/M, Hand Jobs, M/M, Multi, Oral Sex, Romance, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-05
Updated: 2012-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-15 17:32:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/529807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Helen realizes the past is broken beyond repair and surrenders to the inevitable.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Not Predicted, Only Invented

**Author's Note:**

> This may be the start of a series. I had an idea for something that doesn't happen here, but could very well occur later on in the story. This is just sort of setting the scene for future stories in this reality.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Helen Magnus makes a choice to give up the world she left.

_1898_  
It was a crack running from the point of impact toward the edges of the mirror. It was a raindrop disturbing the flat surface of a still pond. It was a shout echoing from the walls of a cavern until nothing remained but a memory of a voice. 

It was the last rented carriage that meant whoever arrived next would be sent away empty handed. It was an amount of finite material that was exhausted with her order. A cold virus that passed through her and was thus delayed from its historically appointed rounds. People who originally became ill on Tuesday were now fine until Thursday or the week-end. Miniscule changes, hardly worth noticing, but they begat larger changes that spread to waves and shattered glass. The clothes she bought, the food she ate, it all expanded exponentially into the world. Eventually she decided that with all the small damage she had done, it wouldn't hurt to make one large change if it helped her make sense of it all.

Once H.G. recovered from de-bronzing, Helen explained the situation to her as they shared a "rebirthing" cigarette. They were in the bedroom Helen had been using, a bolt hole that she knew for a fact she hadn't set foot in before 1906. H.G. lounged on the bed, taking a long drag from the cigarette as Helen told her tale. Their fingers brushed as they passed the cigarette back and forth until finally the story was done.

"What do you think? You're the expert on time travel."

"Hardly, dear. I've never gotten any of my bloody contraptions to work. But now that I know it's possible I can focus my attentions properly. You have given me hope, Helen. I thank you." She drew on the cigarette and stared at a spot near the ceiling. When she exhaled in a plume of white, she rested on her elbow and stretched to hand the cigarette back to Helen. "As for your question, it's impossible. You forever altered the course of history when you set foot on a London street in full view of everyone. Your first five minutes in this era, you and Adam Worth destroyed a building. You were arrested by Scotland Yard and exposed them to your fashions and speech patterns. Can you honestly say that you've not used anachronistic slang since your arrival?"

Helen looked away.

"The James Watson who provides you with supplies is not the James Watson you knew. This world is changed, Helen. A small change, but it will grow. Someone lost their home or business because of your fight with Adam Worth."

"So my timeline is doomed?"

"Not at all. Your timeline will continue, just without you. One can't simply step back in time and then follow along the current." She held the cigarette between her lips, then removed it. She blew out a single solid puff of smoke and used her tongue to split it into two separate streams. "See? Adam Worth forked the timeline. In one, history progresses as planned. In the other, there are two Helen Magnuses." She sucked in a breath through her teeth and let her eyes linger on Helen for a long moment. "A thought I am trying very desperately not to make prurient."

Helen managed a smile. "So nothing I do makes a difference."

"On the contrary. Everything you do makes a difference, but it won't affect the world you left. Time is not a linear progression. What we experience as the present is mutable, and the future is ever-changing. Don't think of what you did as going back in time. Think of it as... stepping sideways into a stream that's moving a touch slower than the one you started in."

Helen considered that. "So to the world I left, I'm dead."

"Unfortunately, that would appear to be the case."

"I wish I could explain... tell them..." She let her words drift off, pressing her thumb between her lips and chewing idly on the nail. "I've lost so many people that I love. Today I got so many of them back that I'm tempted."

"Give in to the temptation, Helen. And come over here so that I may give in to one of my own." She held out her hand. "It's been far too long since I've felt someone's flesh against mine. I crave your touch, my dear."

Helen took a final drag off her cigarette before resting it on the porcelain ashtray on the nightstand. She stood up and slipped out of her robe before she joined H.G. on the bed. She thought of the horrible things she could prevent if she stopped trying to protect the timeline. She could prevent atrocities, she could save hundreds of thousands of lives. She could provide priceless intelligence that would bring an end to wars years earlier. Would the resulting world be better than the one she left? It was impossible to tell. But could it be worse? 

She undressed H.G. slowly and decided that, for better or for worse, the past was her present now. No matter what the calendar said, the future was something that hadn't happened yet. It was a blank slate on which she could create whatever future she wanted. The possibilities were truly breathtaking, as was the woman spread out before her. She put aside thoughts of worlds and loved ones lost and focused on the moment at hand.

 _1918_  
SIS Officer Helen Magnus marched into the Sanctuary, hell-bent on murdering someone. She removed her leather riding gloves, scanning the rooms she passed for her intended victim. The sun was low in the sky, hitting the eastern-facing windows at an angle that washed them in golden light. The grand foyer of the home, which had grown into a palace in the past two decades, was far too idyllic and peaceful for her mood. She pulled open the doors to the office and found her nemesis at a table surrounded by James Watson, Nikola Tesla, and John Druitt. All four looked up when the doors were flung open, and Helen aimed a finger at the source of her ire.

"You!"

Dame Doctor Helen Magnus, DBE, sighed. "What have I done now?"

Officer Magnus stopped in front of the desk, blonde hair in disarray as she glared at her elder twin. "You neglected to inform me that Davison was a cui'l. Have you any idea how much damage he could have done if I'd been less prepared?"

Dame Magnus blinked in surprised. "Davison was a cui'l? Very curious."

"Yes. I thought as much when he nearly severed my head with the spines on his tail. He transformed in the transport van. It was all I could do to get off the road in one piece so I could deal with him properly. Nikola, if you do not cease that infernal smirking I will make it so that you never smile again."

Nikola raised an eyebrow but his smile dimmed slightly. 

"I apologize. He wasn't infected during the original mission." Dame Magnus tilted her head toward the window, an affectation that the others knew meant that she was trying to follow the ripples back to a source, the one thing she had changed since her arrival that led to Marcus Davison becoming infested by cui'l larvae. She shook her head to dispel the reverie and focused on her younger duplicate again. "Were you badly injured?"

"No."

James cleared his throat. "I believe you are actually angry at yourself, Helen." He glanced down at the brunette version seated at his side and smiled. "Well, you know what I mean. We're all guilty of it. Despite Dame Magnus' assurances that the time line is becoming less and less like the one she knew, we still rely on her as if she's an unending fount of information. We treat her as if she's an infallible oracle. It's been twenty years since she arrived. This is not the world she knew." He glanced past Officer Magnus at the office doors she had left open and smiled when he saw who was entering. "Ah, and here we have the evidence."

The new arrival wore men's trousers and a matching jacket, despite the very feminine curves underneath the stiff clothing. She wore a waistcoast buttoned high enough that only the collar of her dress shirt was revealed, a small red bow tie done up at her throat. The girl's blonde hair was pulled back in twin braids and she slowed as she realized everyone's attention was focused on her.

"Have I done something wrong?"

"Of course not, Ashley," Officer Magnus said.

The girl relaxed and stood next to her mother. Dame Magnus, as always, took a moment to marvel at the girl standing before her. Ashley Christina Magnus-Wells had been born in 1899, the result of a very unusual gestation. Fathered by John Druitt, the fetus was kept in stasis by a device James and Nikola created. When Dame Magnus gave up hope on recreating her timeline, she saw an ideal opportunity to heal the losses she and H.G. had both suffered. H.G. carried the child to term and gave birth to the same beautiful young lady Helen remembered. She looked the same, spoke the same - with the exception of a posh British accent that came with being born and raised in London - but existed a century earlier than she should have. It was truly like bringing back the dead. The result was that Ashley was born eleven years after she was conceived and could boast no less than four genetic parents.

Ashley returned Dame Magnus' stare but didn't question it. She was used to her mother's twin regarding her with a sense of loss and gratitude and had long since stopped trying to get her to talk about it. She waited a moment before she broke the silence by speaking. "We managed to recapture the dra'awng without further casualties. There was a bit of a dust-up on the boat to bring it back home, but everything was settled quickly. Mother H.G. is currently securing it downstairs."

"Thank you, Ashley," Dame Magnus said.

"Yes'm." She kissed Officer Magnus' cheek and squeezed her hand before leaving the office.

As always, the visit from their daughter calmed Officer Magnus' temper. Her posture became more relaxed and her face was calm when she turned back to the table. "I apologize, Dame. I shouldn't rely so thoroughly on your reports."

"It's quite all right. I spoiled you all for the first few years, so it's only natural. Perhaps the time has come for us to split as we discussed ten years ago." 

In her mind, it was still much too early for the establishment of a North American Sanctuary, but the mission was progressing much faster than it had the first time. There had been no time wasted by World War I - damn and blast, the Great War. She would never forget the look on James' face when she first referred to it by a numerical title. The 1918 influenza epidemic had been nipped in the bud, cured within a few weeks due to James getting the jump on it. Millions of lives saved, but at what cost?

Floods, tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes. She told herself that some she must have just forgotten, but there were far too many - and the casualties were far too great - for her to have forgotten them all. When she told her fears to James, he had only considered the question with a finger hooked over his upper lip, head bowed so that the light cast shadows over his eyes.

"It stands to reason. Extinction level events are nature's way of restoring balance. When mankind becomes too unwieldy for the planet, it..." He waved a hand. "Cleans the slate. A few million killed in a war, some thousand buried in a mudslide. It's an intriguing example. You prevented mass casualties of war, only for other lives to be lost in a fire. There is a cruel sentience to nature, it seems."

She turned and looked out the window, the setting sun shining on her tears. "I killed them all. I'm responsible."

He touched Helen's chin and forced her to look at him. "Don't burden yourself unnecessarily, Helen. Those lives were not yours to save or give away. It was not a debit being paid on your account. If anything, they merely prove that for all the changes you've created, the universe finds a way to balance itself. You will still achieve the things you were meant to achieve and you will have everything you were meant to have."

"No," Helen whispered. She smiled and kissed his hand. "I will have so much more, and I will know to not take it for granted. Thank you, James."

Now the discussion again turned to creating a new Sanctuary. They split into their standard formation; Officer Magnus sided with John and James, her lovers, while Dame Magnus attempted to keep an open mind. It was easier for her to avoid pitfalls than it had been in the beginning, but she still often found herself thinking of the "real" timeline or referring to how things had "really" happened.

They finally ceased the discussion at a stalemate. Dame Magnus, who had been awake all night awaiting word from her daughter, excused herself and went to her room for a quick nap. She found H.G. sitting on the edge of the bed, bending forward to undo the laces of her boot. The back and sleeves of her white blouse were still red with Eritrean dust, and her hair was a loose, tangled mess. She looked back as the door opened and smiled wearily.

"Darling."

"Hello, my love." Helen closed the door and crossed to H.G.'s side of the bed. She lowered herself to her knees, gently moved her hands away, and H.G. leaned back as Helen undid the laces and helped pull the boots off. She rolled down H.G.'s socks and gently massaged the arches of her tired, aching feet. H.G. groaned and rolled her head back. 

"God, don't start that. I'm bound to fall asleep on you."

"Go on. I'm just as exhausted and it's been far too long since I've slept in your arms." She bent down and kissed H.G.'s toes. "We can reacquaint ourselves properly when we're both fully rested." She continued her massage and H.G. began unbuttoning her blouse. "How was our daughter?"

"She is fully the sum of her parts. The best of her father and mothers. But of course you knew that."

Helen smiled. "I knew a girl fathered by John Druitt, raised by a single mother. She looks the same, but this Ashley is truly ours."

"Mm." She shrugged out of her blouse and bundled it inside-out so the dust didn't fall over the bedclothes. Helen undid the catch of her trousers, and H.G. lifted her hips so they could be pulled down and off. H.G. sighed and lay back, hands resting on her chest just above the swell of her breasts, and she relaxed as Helen kissed a path up her legs.

"Would you like me to run the water for a bath?"

"Not yet. I'd just fall asleep in the water and wake up grumpy. After we sleep."

"Very well." She sat up and undressed herself, then climbed onto the bed. H.G. disturbed herself just enough to get under the blankets. They spooned against each other, kissing gently as they both let sleep claim them. Helen stroked H.G.'s cheek and wondered, as she often did, what awaited her when she finally returned to 2011. There was no way to tell if it would be better or worse, and maybe those terms didn't even apply to the situation. The only certain thing was that the world she finally returned to would be different. And different, she had long ago discovered, was not always a bad thing. 

She smiled as she fell asleep to the sound of H.G.'s breathing.


	2. The Effect in the Cause

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which John broods on what might have been. (John/James, Helen/Helen/HG - mentioned)

_1899_  
James expected the library to be empty at that hour, but John was lounging in a wingback chair in front of the fireplace. Only his pinstripe trousers were visible, crossed at the knee with one long-fingered hand resting on the thigh. James poured himself a brandy before sitting in the opposite chair. John's tie was undone and his collar askew, his eyes heavy with a droop that implied James wasn't the first one to pour a drink that night. He finally looked away from the flames and focused on his friend.

"I would have thought you'd be with Helen. One of them, at any speed..."

"Both are with Ms. Wells at the moment. Exploring the differences a century has left on Helen's physique." He smiled. "At least that is their claim. I suspect more prurient purposes."

John nodded slowly. They had all become more adventurous with the arrival of Helen's older, wiser self. Once she overcame the mental block of preserving the timeline, she shared information about future relationships that she saw no true reason to forestall. She and James had carried on a flirtation for nearly fifteen years before finally going to bed with each other. Now that they knew it was inevitable, what purpose was there in waiting? Nigel was disappointed to learn the love of his life wouldn't even be born for another twenty years. 

And of course they used their own personal Cassandra to predict more than fated bedfellows. They prevented so many deaths just by being in the right place at the right time to intervene. John and Nikola wore hooded cloaks to keep from being recognized during their acts of derring-do. They were confused why Helen took to calling them Clark and Bruce when they donned their disguises, but she swore it would make sense in a few decades.

And hindsight. Now that they knew the results of their choices, they could avoid pitfalls. James long ago decided he would not take an injection of Helen's blood to preserve his life. Now he knew that his decision led to his death at one hundred and sixty-one years of age, crumbling to dust in a dark and hidden chamber at Helen's hour of need. And the device he had used to preserve his youth had been used against them so often, had required so much effort from the others, that he couldn't in good conscience repeat that particular history. He'd asked Helen for an injection of her blood then and there.

Even now he could feel it coursing through his veins, mending miniscule wrongs that could have led to disease or heart failure. Now how long would he live? How long would Helen live, and Nikola? Their cheeky little song had invoked "the immortal Five." How right it suddenly seemed. Helen spoke often of the loneliness created by immortality. With luck, by taking her blood, he could relieve some of that isolation.

"One hundred years."

John's voice was weak, but there was a tremor of terror in it. James watched him silently, waiting for him to continue. 

"Over one hundred years from now, Helen would discover the energy being that formed a symbiosis with me. A century of madness and insanity and how many lives lost at my blade?" He looked down into his tumbler and tightened his fingers. "I look back at the decade just past and try to imagine ten more decades stacking up on top of it. It's little wonder that my last act in Helen's time was one of sacrifice."

"You can't blame yourself. It was the energy being." The one currently stored within a closed loop device Nikola had created. Helen cobbled together something she called a defibrillator that removed the being from John's body. 

John shook his head slowly. "It was a being of pure energy. Flame does not devour a home because of malicious intent. And an energy being does not drive a man to kill."

James considered the metaphor. "Helen told us of the being's original removal in twenty-ten." Even saying the date seemed impossible to him. The year 2000! The millennium! Helen had seen it and lived through it, spent another decade in what seemed now like an impossibly distant future. "The creature leapt from you and entered her Sanctuary's electrical systems. It acted maliciously toward them in that instance."

"Yes. After a century of sharing my mind and my body, it would go on the offensive, wouldn't it? Helen chose to believe that the energy being drove my madness. I fear that neither of us led the dance, we simply followed along in time to the music." He moved his hand in a slow rhythm and then dropped it to his knee. "I have always harbored dark thoughts, James. I have always been a boy of the shadows and now... I see how deeply into them I sank."

His eyes were dark and reflected the flame of the fireplace. James remembered the soaked, tortured soul who had often turned up on their doorstep after the Ripper murders. He was remembering, James knew, the times he had caused violence to Helen. And, to his shame, James thought of John's first encounter with the Helen of the future. The meek and cringing woman who, despite her cheek, was still very much a product of her age. The Helen nearing her second century was a warrior, strong and fearless, and she had taken John Druitt to the mats. It had been all he could do to keep from shouting "bravo!" when Helen told him of the encounter.

Now he stood and moved to his friend's chair. He knelt in front of him and touched John's hand. "What happened is in the past. And what would have happen shall now never be. You have been pulled back from the brink of madness and welcomed back into our home." His thumb stroked the back of John's hand, and John finally looked at him. "You've won, John. And now begins your long journey back to the good man we all know you were. And you've no need to walk the path alone."

"Thank you, James," John whispered.

James hesitated before he leaned forward. John started to press back against the chair but then acquiesced and tilted forward. Their lips met in a tentative kiss, their first since Oxford and the murders, and to James it felt like the sun bursting through clouds that had hidden it for days. He felt John's tongue against his lips but it rapidly retreated, and John uncrossed his legs to attain a more comfortable position.

On his knees, James moved his hands up the outside of John's thighs. He pressed his thumbs against the material to feel the familiar hollow of John's hips. He broke the kiss and looked down to observe as he moved his hand to the bulge at the front of John's trousers. John put a hand on the back of James' head, breathing heavily as James molded the pinstripe material to the bulge beneath, stroking with the palm of his hand until he couldn't take the teasing any longer.

He undid the buttons of John's trousers and John pressed back against the chair, closing his eyes as he calmed his breathing. James withdrew his friend's cock, running his thumb along the underside of the shaft as his forefinger curled over the top. He angled it up through the gaping material and lowered his head. He wet the pink tip with his tongue, teasing it with a light touch as he tightened his grip around the lowest extreme. He closed his lips around the head and used his other hand to open the fly wider, pulling John's balls free so that he could properly grip the base of him.

"It's been a while, old boy." John's voice was still strained, but the reason was different now. His hands rested on the arms of his chair, the fingers tense but not yet fisted. 

"I think I still recall the basics. And if not, I'm a quick study." 

He used his tongue to guide John's cock into his mouth, pulling back just before it reached his throat. John groaned quietly and James used his free hand to cup John's scrotum and gently massage them as he worked to take John deeper. He lifted his head with a gasp, his bottom lip connected to John's erection with a thin string of saliva that he broke with a brush of his hand. He stroked John's cock, squeezing the base so that it throbbed as he took the head into his mouth again.

"My dear," John groaned, and James closed his eyes. How long had it been since he'd heard that sound of desperate affection from these lips? How long he had craved it. He could hardly bear to read Doyle's trash for all the "my dear Watson" he had the characters bandy about. And now, to hear it properly... He moved his hand down to his lap and frantically worked the buttons, pulling out his cock and gripping it tightly to hold off the orgasm approaching much too fast for his liking.

John's orgasm was also approaching, the shaft throbbing against his tongue from the effort of holding back. He slid the loop of his fingers up John's length then back down, and he sucked gently on the head. John lifted slightly from the chair and pushed himself deeper into James' mouth moments before he came. Thick and warm, John coated James' tongue and the inside of his cheeks with thick ejaculate. James closed his eyes and savored the taste like a drunk who had fallen off the wagon, holding it in his mouth for as long as he dared before swallowing.

John put a hand on the back of James' head and leaned forward. James sat up and their lips met again, tongues no longer teasing and innocent as John grabbed the lapels of James' coat. John stood as he lifted James to his feet, and James allowed himself to be manhandled back against the ornate carving of the fireplace. John's hand flattened against his chest and pushed down, their eyes locked as John found and gripped James' cock.

"There has always been a darkness in me, James Watson," he growled, stroking without mercy. "A part of myself that I kept... well hidden... from the world. A curse... that was alleviated by you and my dear Helen."

"We will not abandon you this time, John," James promised with a sigh. "You're not the only one who must atone for sins of the other future. Let us help you, and we shall all be better for it."

John kissed James, and James succumbed to the pleasure. John cupped his hand to let the palm fill with James' come, finally breaking the kiss only to lick himself clean. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth as he stepped away, and both men rearranged their clothing. John touched James' cheek and let his hand warm the smooth skin for a moment before he drew it away. 

"Thank you, my dear."

"Of course. Shall we see if H.G. and the Helens are available?"

"No. As the latter Helen has told us, we shall have plenty of time together. Let them enjoy themselves." He put his hand on James' shoulder and guided him from the room. "You and I, on the other hand, have much to make up for. Shall we adjourn to my chambers?"

James smiled at John's mood, which was much improved from the dismal study he'd seen upon arriving. He nodded and allowed himself to be steered to wherever John planned to lead.


End file.
